


Chasing Threats

by AnnaHeim



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Also Nora's not there, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Barry Allen Needs a Hug, Barry and Iris aren't married yet, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Barry Allen, Hurt/Comfort, Secrets, These two are the most chaotic duo and I love them, Working Title 'The Tale of Two Idiots'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaHeim/pseuds/AnnaHeim
Summary: It really wasn't supposed to go this wrong.On a quiet night after work Barry stumbles across an arms-dealing ring spanning far across the country, carrying weapons of mass destruction of unknown origin.  Still recuperating from the fight against DeVoe, Barry decides that this once, he'd go down this path alone.That is if a certain Archer would let him.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	Chasing Threats

Barry hadn’t known how bad it would get, honest.

It was a side mission, a pit stop, a detour on the way back home.

He had been filing his last report of the day at CCPD, the typical armed robbery case. When he’d overheard two on-duty cops discussing rumors of new, heavy artillery weapons finding their way onto the black market, making their way into arms dealers, heading to Central City. 

If Barry was hiding behind the filing cabinet when the conversation occurred, so be it, it was his job as, you know, the Flash. Protecting the city from oncoming threats and all.

The docks connecting Central City and Keystone City were mentioned often, so that was naturally where he went to check first. He clocked out of CCPD at 10 at night, it was after hours for Team Flash, so everyone had gone home, Iris was helping Joe and Cecile redesign the baby room for baby Jenna, so she was staying there for the night. Barry literally had nothing better to do, it was either go home to an empty apartment, or do some light reconnaissance on a possible arms deal location.

Because that's all it was supposed to be, reconnaissance.

But after sweeping the Central City docks, a very unhidden map connected the source of the weapons to an abandoned building in downtown Keystone City. Which then connected to a warehouse several miles west of there. The same cycle went on until it was 2 am and he was on the ground floor of a run-down apartment building about three miles out from Star City.

So much for ‘light reconnaissance’.

Barry was tired, he was hungry, and he was growing increasingly impatient with every heavily armed bread crumb he found during this never-ending night. So he hoped and prayed to every deity, human and Kryptonian alike, that’d he’d find  _ something _ of substance as walked down the moldy hallway of the building.

As he ventured further, he started hearing far away chatter, from which one of the rooms within the hallway, he couldn’t tell. Barry hastened his pace, but quickly stopped in front of a suspicious-looking door, labeled ‘water valve’.

Phasing the door handle off its screws, Barry entered a room with a suspicious lack of water valves.

And a suspicious amount of high artillery weapons.

They were unlike anything Barry had ever seen, pistols, rifles, blasters, what looked to be even explosive launchers lined the walls of the room. It was downright horrifying.

As Barry handled one of the rifles, he couldn’t even tell which buttons did what, much less how to fire the damn thing.

It seemed that Barry would be the only one oblivious of the rifle’s function that night, as seven identical rifles were currently pointed at him by seven angry-looking henchmen.

Turning fully towards said henchman, Barry held up the gun with one hand, half-heartedly pointing at it with the other.

“You guys wouldn’t happen to know how to use this thing would ya?”

Turns out, they did know how to use those things.

Barry sped forward, moving to disarm, but for each henchman he disarmed, commotion grew, and two more ran in to take their place.

One of the guards threw down what Barry assumed was a bomb, ducking for cover, the bomb did explode, but instead released a forceless wave. It wasn’t until sharp static assaulted Barry’s ears that he realized it was an EMP.

Which meant his comms were fried.

Which meant he couldn’t call anyone for backup.

Well shit.

To add to Barry’s ever-growing luck, as he tried to shake out the ringing in his ears, we waited a second too late before promptly being blasted in the stomach with a laser... Bolt? Blast? Beam? A laser something.

Now Barry had dealt with his fair share of blasters in his time, in the age of metahumans, cyberterrorists, and men in super-shrinking-suits, they weren’t an uncommon commodity sold on the black market. So when he was usually met with a blast to the chest, he would at most be pushed a few feet back, maybe hit a wall. His tri-polymer suit would take the brunt of the blast. The suit would come out a bit singed, he’d come out a little bit achy, and he’d race back to Star Labs to face a whiney Cisco complaining about suit damage and repairs.

Good times.

So when Barry was blasted this time, he really wasn't expecting to be blasted through a concrete wall, falling with a graceless  _ thump _ . Skidding across the new, unknown floor.

He also wasn’t expecting the agonizing pain which followed said blast.

Because when Barry broke out from his daze and looked down to survey the damage dealt. All he saw was red.

Whatever made up the laser blast had completely disintegrated the part of the suit it blasted, as well as the clothes and the  _ skin _ under the suit. All that remained was a gaping wound the size of half a soccer ball, edges of the wound slightly seared as thick, red blood oozed from the middle and  _ oh god was that an organ. _

He had to get out of there. Barry was so screwed and he  _ had _ to get out of there.

How far was he from Central? Even if he could manage some way back to Star Labs, what would he do? He could probably patch himself up roughly, but realistically he’d pass out of blood loss from the time spent running back, with his dead corpse artfully strewn across the floor surrounded by blood for all his friends to see in the morning.

Fun.

But if he could get to the Arrow Cave…

He knew that he was three miles… east? Of Star City, if he could make it to the middle of the city and find City Hall, from there he could find his way down to the Arrow Bunker. He could probably get there within the next seven minutes as compared to the near half-hour it would take to get back to Central City. Minimizing the amount of blood loss, and consequently, minimizing the chances of you know, passing out and dying.

All Barry had to do was find his way to the Bunker, patch himself up as best as he could, maybe look through the Bunker’s stock to find anything to make him some decent, speedster-level painkillers, and then maybe call for help.

Yes, this was the plan. A very half-assed plan, but still a plan.

Barry barred the excruciating pain as he sped out of the apartment building, grabbing one of the blasters for good measure on his way out.

He was a forensic scientist, okay? He scanned crime scenes for a living, he needed some evidence.

He painfully made his way through the heart of Star City and to the Bunker.

Barry turned on all the lights and went to work.

He made his way to the medical cabinet and began his raid. He was going to need bandages, maybe some stitches would be good to have as well, just for good measure. Disinfectant, morphine, over-the-counter-painkillers. A variety of other chemical looking… things… that he could probably make use of when he was feeling less lightheaded.  _ When did he start feeling lightheaded? _

Barry made his way to the center of the bunker, where he could get the best light while sat down on Felicity’s chair. He wasn’t oblivious to the trail of blood he was leaving as he walked through the Bunker, and he could clearly see the blood slowly continue to flow and seep into Felicity’s chair.

He’d pay them back for the damages and possible psychological trauma tomorrow. He was sure he had some Star Labs money somewhere.

He took off his half-destroyed Flash suit, leaving him in his equally destroyed white t-shirt and tight sweatpants he wore under the suit. He looked down at the wound and honestly had no idea where to begin.

It was so  _ big _ , the area of his open palm could barely cover it, he didn’t even know  _ how _ to disinfect the wound much less bandage it. He couldn’t tell how to deal with the burned portions of the wound either and  _ how was it still bleeding. _

Barry stared back to where the medical cabinet stood, somehow hoping he could will it to shift over to where he sat and provide him with exactly what he needed to conquer this monstrosity of a wound. Because honestly, he didn’t think he was physically able to move his legs anymore, much less pace up and down the rest of the night trying to find  _ something _ in the Arrow Bunker… Arrow Cave? Arrow Lair, no, Arrow Foundry. No no, Arrow Bunker. Was there even an ‘Arrow’ prefix?

Great, now he was delirious.

Before he could waste any more time, Barry willed his arms to do... Something. He reached out for the disinfectant and cloth to start working on this… thing on his abdomen. He hissed at the burn and just hoped he wasn’t screwing up the wound anymore. He honestly wanted to laugh, and also maybe cry. Because this was basically sheer torture and he soon realized that lesson number one in treating a wound was he probably should’ve  _ tried to stop the bleeding _ before doing anything but here he was haphazardly dabbing this coconut sized wound in his goddamn stomach waiting for god-knows-what to happen. All while in some stupid bunker-lair-foundry thing stylized around a weapon from the paleolithic era, 600 miles away from home where he’s supposed to be lounging in an empty apartment eating his favorite pizza which  _ everyone hated for some reason _ . But no no no, he had to go off his little adventure following some random rumor overheard from some conversation between beat cops, for god's sake. Bunny hopping around from city to city to end up in the ass of Star City of all places and  _ yeah, okay, _ so the rumor ended up being true but he  _ still _ …

“Barry, what the fuck!”

Barry's head shot up as he scanned for where the voice came from, he squinted to see a slightly blurry looking Oliver standing in front of the hall that he was pretty sure Team Arrow had fashioned into a makeshift shooting range. Oliver’s eyes were wide with a fear so intense Barry actually straightened up and began to look around for any incoming threat he hadn’t seen before. Until he soon realized that Oliver was staring straight at the monster wound Barry was attempting to tame. Oliver's eyes slowly followed the trail of blood Barry had left behind during his prior raid of Team Arrow’s medical stock, and promptly whispered, more to himself than anyone.

_ “What the fuck.”  _

Within his current situation, and with the addition of his now clearly disturbed friend in front of him, it was Barry’s job to prepare and deliver an incredibly well thought out and intelligible response to calm Oliver down. He was a hero, he was the Flash, it was his job to calm down the fearful and inspire hope to all he saves. He could handle this. A wound twice the size of his own fist? Child’s play. He could do it, his main goal was to calm down Oliver, maybe subvert his focus from the very unthreatening amount of blood splattered around the Bunker because  _ Barry would clean it up later, duh. _ The wound would be gone soon enough with Barry’s speed healing, he was like, 51% sure, which was basically tipping the scales toward completely certain. So Oliver really had nothing to worry about, and Barry would communicate this is a completely firm and professional manner.

“Hey man, how’s it going?”

_ Nailed it. _

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! This is my first fic in a long time, and actually my first fic written on AO3 ever. Sorry if the tags aren't done right, but I've been wanting to post this for a while. Tell me what you think! Also, I hope the formatting isn't too annoying to read, I write in a way that's sort of sharing the character's thought process, constructive criticism is always appreciated though. Thanks!


End file.
